The Western Australian schools yield the highest death rate of any, nearly 35 per 1,000 for boys and 13 per 1,000 for girls.
These death rates are of course only approximations to the truth. But on any supposition they are very high.
It is important to compare these death rates with those of children of the same ages at home. But we have only the means of doing so for 5 years of age and onwards. The home rates are given in Table E., which shows that from 5 to 10 the total mortality of both sexes is 9·2 per 1,000 at home. From 10 to 15 it is 5·3 per 1,000. Above 15 the home mortality is 8·4 per 1,000. Making allowance for native children dying at home, we shall be within the truth in assuming the mortality of native children at school as double that of English children of the same ages.
Table G, p. [29].
The next point of the inquiry is to ascertain the nature of the fatal diseases. And here we find a remarkable difference in the returns from different colonies. Thus out of 190 deaths in the Sierra Leone schools, all except 8 are due to small pox, measles, and hooping cough, scarlet fever, and other forms of fever.
In the Ceylon schools these same diseases, with the addition of diarrhœa, dysentery, and cholera, give rise to 261 deaths out of a total mortality of 341. In contrast with this great prevalence of miasmatic diseases, the West Australian schools yield only 2 deaths from children’s epidemics, out of a total mortality of 9.
In the Natal schools three children died of miasmatic diseases out of a total mortality of 16, while in the Canadian schools there is only one miasmatic death out of a total mortality of 27.
The adult natives at many of the colonies are considered specially subject to tubercular diseases, more particularly consumption. This class of diseases is indeed supposed to be a main cause of the gradual decline and disappearance of uncivilized or semi-civilized races. {6}
The facts, as regards these colonial schools, are as follow:—
Amongst the Sierra Leone children there is only one death from consumption and one from scrofula reported out of a total of 190 deaths. In the West Australian schools two of the nine deaths arose from consumption. In the Natal schools there was one death from consumption and one from scrofula out of 16 deaths. But there died seven children of other chest diseases besides consumption. The Ceylon schools yielded seven deaths from consumption, five from other chest diseases, and one from scrofula, out of a total mortality of 341.